This collection offers vital new conceptual and methodological tools for understanding the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, the essays in this book emphasize the complex negotiations between culture and industry that have shaped not only the brand and its many narrative threads, but also the larger organization of the transnational media landscape.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Dan Hassler-Forest is an assistant professor at the University of Utrecht. Sean Guynes is a PhD student in the Department of English at Michigan State University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Table of Contents

A Few Notes on Terminology

Introduction: “What Is This Strange World We’ve Come to?”

Henry Jenkins and Dan Hassler-Forest

Part I “First Steps Into A Larger World”:
Establishing the Star Wars Storyworld

Tara Lomax

Jeremy W. Webster

Matthew Freeman

Thomas Van Parys

Stefan Hall

Drew Morton

Part II “Never Tell Me the Odds!”:
Expanding the Star Wars Universe

Lincoln Geraghty

Jonathan Rey Lee

Sean Guynes

Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera and Philipp Dominik Keidl

Mark J.P. Wolf

Andrew M. Butler

Cody Mejeur

Part III “More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine”:
Consolidating the Star Wars Franchise

This collection offers vital new conceptual and methodological tools for understanding the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, the essays in this book emphasize the complex negotiations between culture and industry that have shaped not only the brand and its many narrative threads, but also the larger organization of the transnational media landscape.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Dan Hassler-Forest is an assistant professor at the University of Utrecht. Sean Guynes is a PhD student in the Department of English at Michigan State University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Table of Contents

A Few Notes on Terminology

Introduction: “What Is This Strange World We’ve Come to?”

Henry Jenkins and Dan Hassler-Forest

Part I “First Steps Into A Larger World”:
Establishing the Star Wars Storyworld

Tara Lomax

Jeremy W. Webster

Matthew Freeman

Thomas Van Parys

Stefan Hall

Drew Morton

Part II “Never Tell Me the Odds!”:
Expanding the Star Wars Universe

Lincoln Geraghty

Jonathan Rey Lee

Sean Guynes

Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera and Philipp Dominik Keidl

Mark J.P. Wolf

Andrew M. Butler

Cody Mejeur

Part III “More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine”:
Consolidating the Star Wars Franchise